


Empty World

by sapphireswimming



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist (Anime 2003)
Genre: Angst, Family, Gen, Gen Work, Memory Loss, One Shot, Post-Canon, painful painful irony
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-19
Updated: 2013-06-19
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:08:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23266753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sapphireswimming/pseuds/sapphireswimming
Summary: They had been everything to each other.
Relationships: Alphonse Elric & Edward Elric
Kudos: 8





	Empty World

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted here: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8522124/8/At-the-End-of-All-Things

No one could tell him much about Ed. Certainly, plenty of people from every stop on Al's journey claimed to have encountered him and were more than willing to tell their story to anyone who would stop and ask—most of the time they were outrageously exaggerated tales that even Al, knowing how amazing his brother was in real life, couldn't believe.

This or that or the other thing. Wild stuff. Some of it true.

But none of these people could tell him what Ed was really like. They didn't see anything but a red coat, smirk, and a clap of hands.

He wanted to know what his brother was really like. Because that was something that he shouldn't be able to forget. And yet somehow, no matter how hard he tried, he could remember nothing of those four years. Four years. When the two were inseparable.

The worst part about this entire situation was that he couldn't even remember that there was something he had forgotten. It just felt as if nothing had ever happened and he wouldn't have minded, wouldn't ever have cared if it weren't for all of these people who knew what he didn't know but should. Knew about him, about his brother, about their adventures, about their living for nothing but finding a solution to the other's problems.

How could he forget something like that?

He tried to talk to the people he heard were closest to them during that time; Mustang and his crew. But even they could only tell him so much about his brother. Breda confirmed that Ed had the appetite of several men, Havoc said that he was one of the best practical jokers in the complex, Fury told him how willing Ed was to help transmute a few wires that stayed stubbornly out of place. Falman commented on how brilliant Ed was, Hawkeye was kind enough to tell him that Al meant the world to him. Mustang, when he was finally able to talk to the man, gave him a rather colorful picture of bad a subordinate could be.

All of them pieces of Ed. All of them useful bits of information. But put together there was still hardly anything there. Nothing to fill in the gaps. Nothing to tell him what Ed was really like as a brother, as the only person that really mattered.

He stared for hours at black and white photographs. They told him nothing.

He stared at his reflection in the mirror until his eyes hurt, hoping that when he spoke, some foreign (but oh so familiar) voice would answer back.

Even Pinako and Winry, the only family he had left, could tell him little. Winry would rant about how careless Ed was with her beautiful perfect automail and how much danger the two of them got into on military assignments. Granny could only talk about the determination in golden eyes to do anything it would take to get his brother back.

That was the only truth Al was left with in the end.

That his brother would do anything for him. _Had_ done everything for him.

And he didn't even remember.

Because throughout that entire time, they never let anyone else in. Never let anyone else get close enough to really know them. More than a superficial glance and hello and work relationship.

They were the world to each other. Had been since their mother died. Everyone else they met along their journeys were means to the end of restoration. Some were regular acquaintances. A select few were friends. But the two were everything, all the other ever needed.

And now that one of them was gone…

Al bunched up his face in his hands. Now that brother was gone, his world was gone. And there was no one left with knowledge to explain his missing reality.


End file.
